Speaker 1: Just the arrogance of Lizzie Maulder. It made it easier
Speaker 1: for me to go after her because I just didn't
Speaker 1: like her. In May, authorities are piecing together the spectacular
Speaker 1: cons of Laguna Beach c p A. Lizzie Mulder. When
Speaker 1: all was said and done, how much money did she
Speaker 1: get from you? But years before Lizzie scams that Newport
Speaker 1: Beach salon, she starts doing the books for Jack Wines
Speaker 1: in Napa Valley. She was a big part of helping
Speaker 1: me get organized when I started the wine business. And
Speaker 1: when Jay Avery checks himself into rehab for a prescription
Speaker 1: pain pill addiction, Lizzie Maulder takes the reins of his
Speaker 1: wine company, and what she does next almost drives Jay
Speaker 1: to the brink. I got to a place to where
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure if I really wanted to continue moving
Speaker 1: forward with life. I'm Jonathan Walton and this is Queen
Speaker 1: of the con The O C Savior Episode three, Grapes
Speaker 1: of Wrath. Me and my partner, close friend May Alex.
Speaker 1: We would lend the wine and then we go out
Speaker 1: and sell it, just door to door. Basically, Jay Avery
Speaker 1: starts Jack Wines in Napa Valley back in two thousand
Speaker 1: nine and he's doing really well and it started to
Speaker 1: get bigger than we had direct to consumer, which was online,
Speaker 1: and that's when I decided to hire Lizzie to help
Speaker 1: manage to drect to consumer. And the relationship started as
Speaker 1: she was just kind of helping me do the accounts,
Speaker 1: payable and receivable and managing the book so paying for
Speaker 1: the foil of the cork, the bottles ship being as
Speaker 1: well as uh storage. So I delegated a lot of
Speaker 1: that to her. And when you started the wine business
Speaker 1: and you hired Lizzie and she starts helping you do stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, run the finances. What stage of your addiction
Speaker 1: are you at. I'm not even full till yet. I'm
Speaker 1: highly functioning. But I met her in oh nine and
Speaker 1: it didn't get really bad until the middle of two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven until that went stop treat me. So at
Speaker 1: this point, you're running a business and Lizzie appears to
Speaker 1: be not only helping you with your wine business, but
Speaker 1: helping you recover, like helping you with your addiction. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when I was getting sober, her brother passed away
Speaker 1: from a heroin overdose and he was also an opiate addict,
Speaker 1: and she told me, you know, to get sober and
Speaker 1: not to die on her too. Those were her zact words.
Speaker 1: M Lizzie Mulder becomes like a sister to Jay. They
Speaker 1: spend Christmas Is and Thanksgivings together. So when Jay checks
Speaker 1: himself into rehab, Lizzie's got us back. And at that
Speaker 1: point I needed to pay a bunch of bills and
Speaker 1: do a bunch of stuff for the business and detox
Speaker 1: in Utah. And then they wouldn't allow me adequate time
Speaker 1: on the computer to get done, and I needed to
Speaker 1: get done. They asked me if I had somebody that
Speaker 1: could help me in this process, and they took me
Speaker 1: down to Wells Fargo and I made her a signer
Speaker 1: on the account and I gave her signing authority. So
Speaker 1: whild Jay is in rehab, Lizzie takes full control of
Speaker 1: Jack Wines and seems to be doing a fantastic job
Speaker 1: bottling wine, doing the books, paying vendors, and paying the
Speaker 1: company's taxes. Production actually ticks up under Lizzie's leadership. Jay
Speaker 1: Avery and his wife Marla are relieved. And when I
Speaker 1: got out, I really wanted to stay healthy and stay
Speaker 1: active in my recovery and not have to focus on
Speaker 1: some of that stuff. So I just let her run
Speaker 1: with it until I got healthy, and then it seemed
Speaker 1: like she was doing a good job, so I didn't
Speaker 1: change anything in the In the short term, she was
Speaker 1: also like giving him a lot of hope with investors
Speaker 1: in these grandiose ideas of where the winery would go.
Speaker 1: So not only is Lizzie doing a great job running
Speaker 1: Jack Wines, but she's also courting new investors out of
Speaker 1: China who have millions of dollars they potentially want to
Speaker 1: invest in Jay's company. She said she had sent an
Speaker 1: email to a company that helps young wineries grow and
Speaker 1: go global, right, and depending if the products any good
Speaker 1: and if we have marketing behind us, but they would
Speaker 1: give us marketing dollars, they would help us find distribution.
Speaker 1: But they needed more vidols, right, So we did a
Speaker 1: cabin a chardonnay. It was a high end wine, but
Speaker 1: we were going to make a couple of lower end
Speaker 1: products that we could do volume but keep the high
Speaker 1: end as well. So I had to make samples that
Speaker 1: had to get bottles. I had to come up with labels.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was a process and at the time,
Speaker 1: I had the money to do it, So I said,
Speaker 1: you know what I disc could potentially helped this brand
Speaker 1: grow exponentially. This sounds like a good opportunity. So I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go forward. Let's examples, let's get bottles, Let's maybe
Speaker 1: do new labels, you know, the foil of the cork.
Speaker 1: I wanted to do a certain kind of cork. I mean,
Speaker 1: there was all sorts of stuff that we wanted to do,
Speaker 1: the adding little bells and whistles that created you know,
Speaker 1: a better buzz around the name and better marketing. So
Speaker 1: the process was she told me about it. I talked
Speaker 1: to Brent Harrison. Brent Harrison gave me a list of
Speaker 1: action items I needed to do for them to be
Speaker 1: satisfied and investing into our company. Brent Harrison is the
Speaker 1: liaison for a huge Chinese wine conglomerate, the Wine Trust.
Speaker 1: They're excited to invest millions of dollars in Jack Wines.
Speaker 1: They just need some more proof of concept stuff from
Speaker 1: j We're gonna come up with, you know, three or
Speaker 1: four more different rattles of wine, and then we were
Speaker 1: going to ship it out to him and have them sample,
Speaker 1: and then we were supposed to meet in Boston one
Speaker 1: of the times, and they canceled, and then I spoke
Speaker 1: to Brent Harrison for another six months over the phone. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: I think we're getting samples. I think we got the
Speaker 1: foil of the core. Lizzie would send me pictures of
Speaker 1: all this stuff when she was ordering. I said, it
Speaker 1: looks great. We were getting ready for this meeting in Seattle,
Speaker 1: and then the last minute they text me, probably around
Speaker 1: ten am on a Friday, and I was supposed to
Speaker 1: leave it around four pm to go to Seattle, and
Speaker 1: they said they wanted another live scan. And a live
Speaker 1: scan is what you have to do to be able
Speaker 1: to get liquor licenses in the rest of the country.
Speaker 1: It's just basically a background check. I had one done
Speaker 1: before my d U I, but I wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: able to pass another one but the last ten years,
Speaker 1: so I should have been fine. And Lizzie said, well
Speaker 1: they want an updated one, and said, well we just
Speaker 1: had this woman two and half three years ago. I
Speaker 1: should be fine, and she's like, I'll go, you hang back.
Speaker 1: I don't want this to be on professionals, so that
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. I'm going and I'm meeting these people.
Speaker 1: I kind of had an idea that this wasn't really
Speaker 1: adding up. So I called the Edgewater in Seattle for
Speaker 1: assistance with an existing and I said, hey, is there
Speaker 1: a room for Elizabeth Mulder in another room for Jay Avery?
Speaker 1: And they said no, and I said, okay, So I
Speaker 1: text Lizzy. I said, give me the confirmation number for
Speaker 1: the hotel. So ten minutes later I got confirmation. So
Speaker 1: then I called the hotel and I spoke to the
Speaker 1: same lady and she said, someone just called and booked
Speaker 1: that room. Then all of a sudden, Jay gets an
Speaker 1: email from Brent Harrison canceling their Seattle meeting altogether. I
Speaker 1: just I knew right then and there this whole thing
Speaker 1: was a bunch of it was just bs. I knew,
Speaker 1: and I cried, I'll be honest, man, I was. I
Speaker 1: cannot believe that all this is not what it is.
Speaker 1: I was so hurt, so I didn't even go to anger.
Speaker 1: I didn't go. I just laid in bed for a
Speaker 1: little bit and gathered myself and said, okay, what do
Speaker 1: we do. Marla's text Lizzie and said, you know, we
Speaker 1: know that this isn't adding up. And that's when Marla
Speaker 1: asked me for all my big statements, all my emails
Speaker 1: for the company, everything, and every day, for anywhere from
Speaker 1: one to four hours a day, she sat in the
Speaker 1: office and printed out everything. No one knew it at
Speaker 1: a time, but Jay's wife, Marla would turn out to
Speaker 1: be crucial to the case. There is another complaints though.
Speaker 1: He was going through a very stressful, difficult divorce and
Speaker 1: she was supposed to be doing all the paperwork or
Speaker 1: all the tacks is and all the financials for it.
Speaker 1: That's where my red flag went up was because his
Speaker 1: child sports through the roof because he couldn't get these
Speaker 1: financials in and it didn't make sense to me. It
Speaker 1: was like a month yet link between the lawyer and her.
Speaker 1: I kept trying to get all this financial information for
Speaker 1: Core so that this could be wrapped up. Lizzie actually
Speaker 1: knows Jay's ex wife and has her hands in all
Speaker 1: of Jay's divorce paperwork, grossly inflating Jay's finances, making his
Speaker 1: ex wife entitled to more alimony. So when Jay and
Speaker 1: Marlaw finally sit down with Detective Jordan Miracian at the
Speaker 1: Laguna Beach Police Department after months of being turned away,
Speaker 1: Jay is convinced Lizzie Mulder and his ex wife are
Speaker 1: concer spiring against him. And the short version of his
Speaker 1: story was, while I was in rehab, my accountant colluded
Speaker 1: with my ex wife, who I'm in a custody battle
Speaker 1: with and child support battle with, and together they emptied
Speaker 1: my account. That's what he thought initially. Yeah, it sounds
Speaker 1: like a mess, right. And their theory was that Lizzie Molder,
Speaker 1: my suspect, had elevated the books to make it appear
Speaker 1: that Jay was making more money, so when Jay and
Speaker 1: his ex wife went to court, she would get more
Speaker 1: alimony and child So that was their theory. They didn't
Speaker 1: think Lizzie was a con artist. They thought his ex
Speaker 1: wife was putting her up to it so she could
Speaker 1: get more alimony. Correct, And that turned out not to
Speaker 1: be true at all. We couldn't prove or disprove it.
Speaker 1: Were they hoots? I couldn't. I couldn't say. But what
Speaker 1: I what I can say is it with fraud? Right,
Speaker 1: I know how much money I make. Right? If I
Speaker 1: had just pulled up here in a brand new Maserati,
Speaker 1: anyone would say, Wow, where do you get the money?
Speaker 1: Get the money? He's either really good at bitcoin, or
Speaker 1: he's a crook because Steel Beach isn't paying him enough
Speaker 1: to you know. Yeah. So I don't think the ex
Speaker 1: wife was necessarily involved, but I think presented with the
Speaker 1: information that Lizzie was giving her, probably, I mean I
Speaker 1: would think that that's exciting. You know, I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: more child support. I'm gonna get I'm gonna get more
Speaker 1: support for my kids. So why would you ask any questions.
Speaker 1: It's like when you get your taxes done, if you
Speaker 1: get a big return, you're not gonna ask your accountant
Speaker 1: how do you pull that off? You're just gonna say, Okay,
Speaker 1: as long as I don't get audited, we're good. Right. Interesting,
Speaker 1: So jase ex wife is not in on the scam.
Speaker 1: Lizzie Mulder is feeding her lies too to ramp up
Speaker 1: the drama and distract everyone from what's really going on.
Speaker 1: After Jay's current wife, Marla judiciously examines all of the
Speaker 1: financial records for Jack Wines, she starts putting the puzzle together.
Speaker 1: So I was going through the emails and I found
Speaker 1: the invoices, and I called these companies and I would say, like,
Speaker 1: do you have an invoice from Jack Wines for this
Speaker 1: amount with this invoice number, and they're like, no, that
Speaker 1: doesn't exist. Remember though at first Detective Morackian isn't convinced
Speaker 1: an actual crime has occurred. He's just meeting with Jay
Speaker 1: and Marla to assuage them, to make them feel heard,
Speaker 1: to be polite. I'm like, okay, this is gonna This
Speaker 1: is a domestic court, family court, civil court, but not
Speaker 1: criminal court. I'm out, what got you back in, Marla? Marla? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So Marla had very meticulous records and emails. It gets
Speaker 1: very convoluted within that you have a fake email address
Speaker 1: with a fake name. And the bottom line is Marlow
Speaker 1: was able to present documentation to show that there fake
Speaker 1: people who are accepting invoices on behalf of Lizzie Molder
Speaker 1: and Jack Wines, and money is not going from Jack
Speaker 1: Wines to these people, It's going right back into Lizzie
Speaker 1: Moulder's account, because she could prove that immediate. So that
Speaker 1: swayed you. It swaghed me enough to at least pull
Speaker 1: a case number and listen, given that it was the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I gave j about forty five
Speaker 1: minutes and Marla and then I said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: we gotta cut the short. Um, I need you to
Speaker 1: go back and get some bank records. I gave him
Speaker 1: some homework. In my head, I was like, they probably
Speaker 1: won't come back. Oh but Jay and Marla do come
Speaker 1: back with tons of evidence, and Detective Miraqian begins piecing
Speaker 1: together the full extent of Lizzie Moulder's scams, and then
Speaker 1: she creates a fake invoice from the wine company right
Speaker 1: shows Jay, Hey, here's the invoice for eight thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: I paid it out of my own pocket. So you
Speaker 1: just reimburse me, reimburse my company molder Financial or later
Speaker 1: on income tax payments, which is a totally different scheme.
Speaker 1: So she ha j fell victim two as well. Yes
Speaker 1: she was making these tax payments allegedly, but really that
Speaker 1: should that they were going to her own Bank of
Speaker 1: America account labeled income tax payments. Yeah, and and income
Speaker 1: tax payments. You know this This kind of goes into
Speaker 1: the naivety of business owners. J. You owe the I
Speaker 1: R S thirty dollars. I'm going to negotiate it down
Speaker 1: to twenty tho. I just need you to cut a
Speaker 1: check for your debt to the I R S. J says, Okay,
Speaker 1: and then what Lizzie would do is she would call
Speaker 1: him back and say, good new news. I negotiated it
Speaker 1: down to twenty dollars. So when you see a check
Speaker 1: go out to income tax payments for twenty grand, that's
Speaker 1: your payment to the i r S. Not knowing that
Speaker 1: you write a check to the Internal Revenue Service or
Speaker 1: the U. S. Treasury or the U. S Treasure, you
Speaker 1: don't write it to income tax payments. It's crazy to
Speaker 1: me the Bank of America ever allowed a dB A
Speaker 1: called income tax payments in the first place, but it
Speaker 1: is crazy. But by far the craziest and most complex
Speaker 1: scam Lizzie pulls on Jack Wines over the course of
Speaker 1: a year is one for the record books. The Wine Trust,
Speaker 1: that Chinese company that wants to pour millions of dollars
Speaker 1: into Jay's winery. Their guy, Brent Harrison, talks to Jay
Speaker 1: on the phone dozens of times, but always ends up
Speaker 1: canceling in person meetings at the last minute. As you
Speaker 1: might have already guessed, there is no Wine Trust and
Speaker 1: Brent Harrison is Surprise, surprise, Lizzie Mulder. She created a website,
Speaker 1: She created a d numbers, she created two personalities, Young
Speaker 1: something a guy named Brent Harrison. So she created this
Speaker 1: whole company basically saying they're going to invest into Jack Wines.
Speaker 1: We need to do X, Y and Z to make
Speaker 1: that happen. So I put it even more money and
Speaker 1: to get bottles and juice and samples and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And that was like a good amount of money too.
Speaker 1: And that company ended up not even being a real company.
Speaker 1: So I spent probably a good twenty five hours, thirty
Speaker 1: hours talking to Brent Harrison. Come to find out she
Speaker 1: is Brent Harrison using spoo software. And I'm thinking, I'm
Speaker 1: talking to a guy overseas that wants to invest into
Speaker 1: my winery, and really I'm talking to that woman in
Speaker 1: Orange County that is just scamming me. The whole time.
Speaker 1: It sounded like a map it did. It sounded just
Speaker 1: like a man. It was wild one a hundred number.
Speaker 1: The website there was review was. There was a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff that she did that we looked into.
Speaker 1: So for me, when this all came out, I felt
Speaker 1: like a crazy person because I'm like, is this really
Speaker 1: a thing? Or is this? Did she really do this?
Speaker 1: It just dawned on me the reason she invented this
Speaker 1: investor and correct me if I'm wrong. Was to get
Speaker 1: you to believe that something big is going to happen
Speaker 1: for the company, so you would put more money in
Speaker 1: so she could take more money out. Yes. At this point,
Speaker 1: Detective Morakian starts building a strong case against Lizzie Molder.
Speaker 1: You had a fake Brent Harrison who I found. You
Speaker 1: have to establish that there's a real So if you
Speaker 1: invent a person, it's not a crime. Correct. You gotta
Speaker 1: be kidding. If it's a real person that's be held
Speaker 1: criminally or civilly liable, it's it's identity theft. But if
Speaker 1: it's a whole invented person, there's no crime. And I
Speaker 1: found a Brent Harrison that was on a board of
Speaker 1: directors for some wine business that was plausible, And it
Speaker 1: was like, that's who she's in person too. And I
Speaker 1: talked to him. He's like, I've been out of the
Speaker 1: wine business for ten years. I live in Washington with
Speaker 1: my wife. And I said, well, you're the victim of identity.
Speaker 1: Cup of down. Congratulations. So we were able to have that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a brilliant move. God, God bless you. I
Speaker 1: got creative. Yeah, without I mean obviously without wine or
Speaker 1: making anything up. If there is a real Brent Harrison,
Speaker 1: and wherever he was living, he was involved in the
Speaker 1: wine business. He did attend a meeting that j Avery
Speaker 1: was at because j Avery, when he was initially bottling
Speaker 1: the wine, he would go into local wineries and they
Speaker 1: do a tasting, right, sell my wine. And from my
Speaker 1: understanding was that Brent Harrison was the manager of one
Speaker 1: of these small wine businesses, and he was also on
Speaker 1: the board of directors for a conglomerate, but he was
Speaker 1: out of the business. Now, the reason why he becomes
Speaker 1: a victim. He could, for all intents and purposes, be suited.
Speaker 1: Somebody could say, well, yeah, he can't they frauded by
Speaker 1: Brent Harrison. He could have been involved, he wasn't, But yeah,
Speaker 1: it becomes very tricky, and professional con artists actually prefer
Speaker 1: their scams to be very tricky because the more complicated
Speaker 1: they make their scams, the harder it is for victims
Speaker 1: to explain what happened to them, and the harder it
Speaker 1: is for police to believe the scams and investigate them.
Speaker 1: Jay Avery has an uphill battle getting police to take
Speaker 1: his case seriously, and he's lost a lot. So she
Speaker 1: got me for like two eighty five altogether. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: then the I r S sent me a letter for
Speaker 1: it was like a quarter million. Probably lost a couple
Speaker 1: of million over the divorce Lizzie I R S or
Speaker 1: like a seven year period. Wow. Yeah, but yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's a couple million you would not have lost if
Speaker 1: Lizzie Mulder didn't inject herself into your life. Yeah. One
Speaker 1: of the most interesting things about the Lizzie Milder case
Speaker 1: is how her victims don't believe they're victims at first.
Speaker 1: A few months after Jay Avery goes to police, Jesse Moulder,
Speaker 1: Lizzie's husband, walks into the Laguna Beach Police Department and
Speaker 1: tells Detective Iraqian his wife is stealing from her clients.
Speaker 1: Jesse walks in, and he gives me the names of
Speaker 1: about six different businesses, and so I start making phone
Speaker 1: calls to all those businesses the following Monday, and every
Speaker 1: single one of them. First, they didn't leave I was
Speaker 1: a detective. Second, they didn't believe that Lizzie Mulder had
Speaker 1: done anything wrong. And third, they weren't entirely convinced that
Speaker 1: they were victims of fraud. Because as Mark Twain famously said,
Speaker 1: it's easier to fool people than it is to convince
Speaker 1: them that they've been fooled. It's also a testament to
Speaker 1: how believable Lizzie really is. Well, the account documentation that
Speaker 1: Lizzie was sending them, which was doctored, showed a balance.
Speaker 1: Everything made sense on paper. So they were defending her
Speaker 1: to you. Yeah, I mean they were basically saying, I
Speaker 1: think you got the wrong girl. Lizzie's a sweetheart. I've
Speaker 1: been at her house, I met her kids and her
Speaker 1: beautiful family, and you know, she's amazing. She's amazing, all
Speaker 1: right at being a sophisticated scammer. When Jay's wife Marla
Speaker 1: starts calling all those companies listed on the fake invoices
Speaker 1: Lizzie used to scam, Jack Wines, she gets some interesting reactions.
Speaker 1: A lot of people were so nice and so cooperative,
Speaker 1: and like, some people were really upset, and I think
Speaker 1: it's somebody that she scammed too. In Laguda Beach was
Speaker 1: like a Kinko's or something, and he was really upset.
Speaker 1: Why is everybody telling me that? Then? Why is this
Speaker 1: going on like that? Which I'm sure maybe it was
Speaker 1: an emotional reaction. I'm sure somebody called Jay in the
Speaker 1: midst of their friendship. I don't know what happened there,
Speaker 1: but she took money out there all the time from
Speaker 1: his account because he was so upset, which did I
Speaker 1: totally understand, like I fully caught him off guard. I'm
Speaker 1: sure I tracked down the guy who Marla fully caught
Speaker 1: off guard that day. His name is Mike Cochrane. I've
Speaker 1: been an entrepreneur since I've been about twenty eight years old. Dad, father,
Speaker 1: four kids, run a series of businesses, but for a
Speaker 1: solid twenty two years I on a print shop, and
Speaker 1: that was when I got exposed to Lizzie Moulder. At
Speaker 1: seven ft tall, Mike cuts an imposing figure. He's a
Speaker 1: no funny business kind of guy, and printing is in
Speaker 1: his blood. My dad was a printer, my grandfather was printer,
Speaker 1: so I'm technically third generation. Wow California Print A Copy
Speaker 1: is the name of Mike's shop, and in eleven he's
Speaker 1: looking for a new c p A. We had a
Speaker 1: series of tax issues. My tax guy used for fifteen
Speaker 1: plus years, were tired. We're tired. Yeah, he said he
Speaker 1: had some health issues, so we hired another guy. Through
Speaker 1: referral a friend local to us, and after six months
Speaker 1: he gave us our taxes for two years and he
Speaker 1: made all sorts of errors, and my wife and I
Speaker 1: were like, at this ain't our guy, so we paid him.
Speaker 1: We then talked to a few of our clients, because
Speaker 1: when you own a print shop, you're dealing with all
Speaker 1: these small businesses. That's what a lot of the people
Speaker 1: are our clients. You know, there are other business owners.
Speaker 1: I was talking to a gal. She was a dog trainer.
Speaker 1: We used to print business cards for her and put
Speaker 1: up graphics on her cars and stuff like that to
Speaker 1: promote her business. She knew a girl, young lady Elizabeth Mulder,
Speaker 1: and referred to us. Said she's a tax repairer. And
Speaker 1: what did she tell you about Lizzie Moulder at that point?
Speaker 1: That she's good, like that she had stole her virtues.
Speaker 1: You know, it's one of the attributes you reflect on
Speaker 1: when you find out you've been ripped off as why
Speaker 1: and how? And I mean, for me, it was simply
Speaker 1: that I'm a very trusting in person and I feel
Speaker 1: I can size people up. You know, I feel like
Speaker 1: I know when there's a threat and when there isn't
Speaker 1: I didn't feel any of that, and at that time
Speaker 1: in my business. We got to know her in late
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven and my dad was in the last
Speaker 1: four months of his life, so I was super distracted.
Speaker 1: You know. I would go into work, work three or
Speaker 1: four hours, and then I'd get in my truck, drive
Speaker 1: down to carlstadd where my dad was, spent three or
Speaker 1: four hours with him, bring him stuff, hang out with him,
Speaker 1: go see my mom, and then come home at eight
Speaker 1: o'clock and I and repeat it. So, you know, that's
Speaker 1: one of the things that you find about these scam
Speaker 1: artist type people is Lizzie profiled certain people. Anybody she
Speaker 1: could run across, but they had to fit a certain criteria.
Speaker 1: They had to have funds behind them of some variety
Speaker 1: or nature, and approachable, you know, and uh busy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that that was her biggest thing that she
Speaker 1: got on us as we were busy. Yeah. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean every small business owner is busy, because you know,
Speaker 1: I come from a family of small business owners. When
Speaker 1: you run a small business, you wear many hats. You
Speaker 1: gotta be this this day, you've gotta be that that day.
Speaker 1: You gotta do everything. You can't hire bodies for all
Speaker 1: the work you gotta do it. Yeah, so of course
Speaker 1: you're busy. Yeah. She targeted small businesses for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then Lizzie Mulder starts grooming her new mark and
Speaker 1: gets really close. Lizzie was around for a couple of
Speaker 1: years to two and a half years. We were friends,
Speaker 1: and she talked about when she was a young girl
Speaker 1: that she started riding horses and she went through a
Speaker 1: stable where she met the dog trainer. They rode horses,
Speaker 1: then they started to competitively ride them long distance across
Speaker 1: country horse racing. I think it's what they call it,
Speaker 1: something like that sounds expensive? Is what sounds expensive? Man?
Speaker 1: That sounds like Orange County, doesn't it. And she came
Speaker 1: in and she said all the right things. She had
Speaker 1: the right look, wearing her norse stroom's closed, good jewelry,
Speaker 1: her nails are done, you know, she looked glamorous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we kind of had a mini interview, my wife
Speaker 1: and I. My wife was doing the books at the time.
Speaker 1: We were really busy with our lives. You know. Lizzie
Speaker 1: comes in, gives us her resume. Here's all my work experience,
Speaker 1: here's you know what I know, and I graduated from Ah,
Speaker 1: wasn't it Pepperdine Pepperdine University? I apologize, Yeah, Sima kum
Speaker 1: Latta the boot you know. You know that's the best
Speaker 1: part is when you start evaluating, when you get ripped off,
Speaker 1: you find out what the fuck was wrong with me? Man?
Speaker 1: I mean, how many people do I know that really
Speaker 1: did graduate? Sima Kulata. You know, it's amazing how people's
Speaker 1: minds can spend this stuff and make it convincing. Yeah. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean society functions by trust. You know, when there's
Speaker 1: a knock at the door and it's the ups guy,
Speaker 1: if you don't trust that it is, you'll never open
Speaker 1: your door, You'll never leave your house. Society would grind
Speaker 1: to a halt without trust. So that's what Lizzie Mulder
Speaker 1: and other use. They know when they say they went
Speaker 1: to Pepperdine, you're just gonna trust that that's true. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The more I hear about Lizzie Mulder from My conquer
Speaker 1: and the more curious I get about the dog trainer,
Speaker 1: the dog trainer recommends her. The dog trainer recommended her. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was like her second mom, she claimed, and all that.
Speaker 1: So I run the dog Trainer through my three background
Speaker 1: check databases, and I find a phone number and I
Speaker 1: call her up and I get her voicemail. Now, I
Speaker 1: don't want her to know I'm calling about Lizzie Malder
Speaker 1: because then she might never call me back. But I
Speaker 1: don't want to lie either, so I keep things they
Speaker 1: but truthful. Hey, my name is Jonathan Walton. I'm working
Speaker 1: on a podcast for I Heart Radio, and I really
Speaker 1: want to interview you. Give me a call back as
Speaker 1: soon as you can. So the next day, the dog
Speaker 1: Trainer calls me back and blows my mind. According to her,
Speaker 1: Lizzie Malder is being set up next time on Queen
Speaker 1: of the Con the o C Savior. You know, the
Speaker 1: embarrassing part about us is we're one of the lower
Speaker 1: rip offs. Okay, she took eighteen thou dollars out of
Speaker 1: my business. She took a little over twenty out of
Speaker 1: my parents. And it looks like this con artist might
Speaker 1: not be working alone. The dog Trainer tells me Lizzie
Speaker 1: Maulder is innocent. Lizzie Maulder is not a con artist.
Speaker 1: That's my mind is long right now, and speaking is
Speaker 1: any evening. An expert weighs in on just how good
Speaker 1: a con artist Lizzie Mulder really is. So, what's your
Speaker 1: take on the dog trainer that Lizzie did a hell
Speaker 1: of a job on her. I think that it's kind
Speaker 1: of one of those things where they all stick together,
Speaker 1: kind of like cops stick together, you know, of the
Speaker 1: con The O C Savior is a production of a
Speaker 1: y R Media and I heeart Media, Hosted by me
Speaker 1: Jonathan Walton, Executive producers Jonathan Walton for Jonathan Walton Productions
Speaker 1: and Eliza Rosen for A y R Media. Written by
Speaker 1: Jonathan Walton, Consulting producer Evan Goldstein, Senior Associate producer Eric Newman.
Speaker 1: Sound design by baked ZD Media, mixed and mastered by
Speaker 1: Cameron Taggy. Sound editing, audio and studio engineering by Matt Jacobson.
Speaker 1: Legal counsel for a y R Media, Gianni Douglas, Executive
Speaker 1: producer for I Heeart Media, Maya Howard